Republican rhetoric is more about hostility toward the poor than fiscal responsibility

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Pat Cunningham offers an unabashedly liberal perspective on national politics. A note of caution: The language gets a little salty on some of the sites to which this blog links. So, don't say you weren't warned. By the way, this blog's name is
...

Pat Cunningham offers an unabashedly liberal perspective on national politics. A note of caution: The language gets a little salty on some of the sites to which this blog links. So, don't say you weren't warned. By the way, this blog's name is inspired by the Will Rogers quote, \x34All politics is applesauce.\x34 In 41 years as a print and broadcast journalist, most of those years with the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star, Pat has covered national politics under eight American presidents. He's attended 10 national political conventions, Republican and Democratic alike, and has interviewed countless prominent political players, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.

John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, strayed from his party’s orthodoxy the other day when he said that “there seems to be a war on the poor” and that “if youíre poor, somehow youíre shiftless and lazy.Ē

Obviously Mr. Kasich isnít the first to make this observation. But the fact that itís coming from a Republican in good standing (although maybe not anymore), indeed someone who used to be known as a conservative firebrand, is telling. Republican hostility toward the poor and unfortunate has now reached such a fever pitch ...